A new study finds that eight of the nation’s 50 dirtiest cities are in Southern California, with one spot in the Inland Empire making the top three.
In the LawnStarter report “2023’s Dirtiest Cities in America,” the study took into account factors such as living conditions, city infrastructure, pollution and consumer satisfaction. Data comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the U.S. Department of Energy, among others.
While the top two spots were taken by cities further east, San Bernardino earned the unfortunate title of the third dirtiest city in the country, up one spot from a year ago. This is in large part due to their #1 overall ranking in pollution and consumer satisfaction when it comes to the cleanliness of their city.
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Other cities in the Inland Empire, such as Ontario (No. 14), Riverside (No. 47), Fontana (No. 30) and Rancho Cucamonga (No. 99), also had the worst air pollution in the study.
The study attributes this ranking in part to the “sea of ​​warehouses east of LA” that earned San Bernardino and Riverside the top two spots in the American Lung Association’s State of the Air Report.
However, IE wasn’t the only SoCal region to make the list, with several cities in Los Angeles County also earning spots in the top 50 — starting with Los Angeles, the so-called “poster child of pollution.”
The City of Angels ranks 15th overall, but surprisingly comes in at 30th in pollution and 12th in customer satisfaction, meaning people are generally dissatisfied with the time they spend in the city.
Other cities on the list include Palmdale (No. 17), Glendale (No. 28) and Long Beach (No. 43).
The top 10 dirtiest cities on the list are:
- Houston, Texas,
- Newark, New Jersey,
- San Bernardino, California,
- Detroit, Michigan,
- Jersey City, New Jersey,
- Bakersfield, California,
- San Antonio, Texas,
- Fresno, California,
- oklahoma city, oklahoma,
- Yonkers, New York.
